Easy Chicken Shawarma at Home

If you've never had chicken shawarma, then you've been missing out big time. It is absolutely one of the most flavorful dishes out there with a spice-loaded marinade and several different easy-to-cook methods. It is delicious on its own, but if you know me, I'm gonna add in a few extra goodies, wrap it up in a pita and toast it. Oh my gosh, I have a feeling you are going to love this recipe. Let's start off by knocking out some prep. Sound good? Let's cook. We are going to start off by toasting up some seeds and pods. I have a medium-sized 10-inch stainless steel skillet. We're adding in one teaspoon of green cardamom pods. You could substitute with black cardamom. Next, I'm adding in one cinnamon stick, one teaspoon of black peppercorns, next, one tablespoon of coriander seeds, and then one tablespoon of cumin seeds. Let's take this over to the cooktop, turn the heat up to low-medium, and what we wanna do is toast these for about four to five minutes. Do this by stirring every 20 to 30 seconds. Throughout this process, the spices will become more aromatic and return, become more delicious, making our marinade that much better. Once they become very fragrant and lightly browned, they are good to go. We're removing them, and next, in a mortar and pestle or in a spice grinder, let's transfer all these toasted seeds and pods right into there. Then we're just going to grind them down until they are finely ground. And comis, no problem at all. If you don't have any of those whole seeds or whole pods, you can absolutely substitute with ground spices. In fact, one whole cinnamon stick is equal to about one teaspoon of ground. I promise you, you'll be good. In addition, there's no need to toast any ground spices up in the pan. Let's make our marinade. Let's transfer our ground up spices into a large bowl. Next, I'm adding in a half teaspoon of cayenne pepper, followed up with one teaspoon of turmeric. Next, one tablespoon of regular paprika. You could use smoked or sweet, no problem. Then I'm going to season it up with about one to one and a half tablespoons of coarse salt. I know that seems like a lot, but I've got a lot of chicken to marinate. Now I'm adding in one third cup of full fat yogurt. Greek yogurt works perfect as well. This will provide some nice fat to our marinade. Next, I'm adding in a quarter cup of olive oil. Avocado oil would also be a great substitute here. Next, I'm adding in two tablespoons of tomato paste. This will add some nice sweet acidic notes to the marinade. Then two tablespoons of white vinegar. You could substitute with red wine, white wine, or even apple cider vinegar. This and the lemon juice will help tenderize and flavor up the chicken. Now I'm going to finely grate in eight whole garlic cloves. Then I have about a one inch peel block of fresh ginger. Let's also finely grate that in there using my microplane. If you also have a fine zester, perfect. Then we're going to zest in two medium sized lemons. Let's cut those in half once they're zested and squeeze all of the juice in there that we can. Make sure no seeds are in our marinade. Then using a whisk, mix everything together until it is completely combined and be sure to give it a taste. It should be extremely flavorful. Also be sure that there's plenty of salt in there because this marinade is what's going to be used to season up our chicken. We're going to briefly set this to the side. And speaking of chicken, I have about three to three and a half pounds total of boneless skinless chicken breasts that I cut in half width wise. And I also have some boneless skinless chicken thighs. And you can use all thigh meat or all breast meat. I prefer the combination of both. Now what we want to do to ensure that the chicken cooks evenly is we want to pound them out a little bit. So I'm adding them right to a plastic bag. You could use plastic wrap or a parchment paper and let's gently pound it out until they are roughly about a quarter of an inch to a half inch thick. These look excellent. Repeat the process until all the chicken is pounded out. Then add it to the bowl with our spice yogurt marinade. Then using clean hands or gloves or even a spatula, take the time to thoroughly massage that marinade into each piece of chicken, allowing all those flavors to marry and coat the chicken in its entirety. This should take you a couple minutes to do so. Don't hurry this process. Next, I'm going to wrap it up completely in plastic wrap and get it ready for marinating in the refrigerator. I can say with 100% certainty, everyone's chicken shawarma marinade is going to look a little bit different depending on who's making it, how they were taught or in the location that it's being made. You'll see some with yogurt, some without, some with cardamom, some without. You may also see something known as baharat, sorry for the pronunciation there. It's also known as Lebanese seven spice. I have some of those spices in there, but I don't have all of them in there. Regardless, there is going to be some variation, but it is all good. It's still going to be delicious. Let's get this in the refrigerator. Heading over to the refrigerator, going to let it sit for in between 12 and all the way up to 48 hours. Remember when marinating, the longer the marinade, the more intense and flavorful this chicken will be. Once you're ready to cook the chicken after that amount of time, I did a full 24 hours. Let's take it out. Looks fantastic. And honestly, the smell is incredible. Now there are several ways to cook this. You can do it just like al pastor using a vertical rotisserie spit, if you happen to have one of those. Now shawarma goes all the way back to the 18th century, originating in the Ottoman Empire. It is incredibly popular in Lebanon, Syria, and of course, Turkey. And in fact, this is the original dish that influenced the Mexican al pastor, which was taught to local Mexicans by Lebanese immigrants. Now, obviously most folks won't have one of these. So the next great option is what I'm going to use. I have a vertical skewer, which you can honestly pick up on Amazon or in a specialty store like William Sonoma or Sur La Table. What you wanna do is taking one piece of marinated chicken at a time, pierce it and take it all the way down to the bottom and simply repeat the process until all the chicken has been used. And I usually use my hands to form it and pack it in really nice and tight. This looks fantastic. We are going on a rack in a lower third of the oven at 375 degrees Fahrenheit. It's going to take in between an hour and 15 and an hour and 30 minutes for this to finish cooking. It should read 165 degrees Fahrenheit internally. Now, let's just say you don't have one of those vertical skewers. Here's another great option. You'll need a sheet tray. Next, I'm gonna add a sheet of parchment paper, then just a plain old baker's rack. Next, you'll need a half peeled onion. Doesn't matter if it's sweet, white, red, or yellow. Then a regular wooden skewer. Pierce through the center of the flat part of your cut onion, then place it down right in the center of the rack. You can see it's nice and stable. Then just like on that metal vertical skewer at the pan I had, do the exact same process and pierce the wooden skewer, packing the chicken in tight until all of it has been used. Then in the oven, same amount of time, 375 degrees Fahrenheit for between an hour and 15 and an hour and 30 minutes. Now, for the last and easiest cooking method, let's take our chicken over to the cooktop with some oil. I've got a large 12-inch nonstick skillet. I think this works best in this case. I'm gonna add in a few tablespoons of olive oil. Turn the heat up to medium. Let it heat up for about 30 to 45 seconds. Then I'm going to add in our marinated chicken and simply give it a little pan sear, just like you would a normal chicken breast. After about two to three minutes of cooking, I'm going to give it a flip. You definitely want some of those little brown marks on there, that equals flavor, my friends. Then once flipped, continue to cook it for another two to three minutes until it is cooked through. Remove them from the pan and then thinly slice, just like a normal chicken shawarma. Perfect and delicious. And I believe cooking the chicken whole instead of thinly slicing it and then cooking it helps to retain moisture, ensuring that our chicken is juicy, tender, and flavorful when slicing after cooking it. But at this stage, let's go back and check out my original one that I put in the oven on that metal vertical skewer. Looks beautiful. You definitely want some of those nice maillard spots on the chicken. That's that delicious brown crust where the amino acids and sugars break down to make the food more aromatic and more delicious. I'm just going to quickly let it rest for about 10 minutes or so. And then using a very sharp slicing knife, you want to shave the chicken right off the skewer as thin as you possibly can, just like this. Yep, this is how you do it. And this just looks so good. The smells are incredible in here. And it still goes back to those fundamental classic techniques that just make better food, hands down. Now, there are so many different ways that you can serve and eat this up. Thinly slice it, serve it with some rice, a side of roasted veggies. For me, like I said earlier, I love it wrapped up in a pita with a bunch of other stuff in there. Here's how I'm going to do it. Plate this up. The relish I love serving it up with is a fresh tomato cucumber salad, also known as an Israeli salad or an Arabic or Middle Eastern salad. In addition, sumac onions really make this wrap sing. Then last but not least, one of my favorites, tomb. Now, you can get every single one of these recipes at my website at billyparisi.com. And now to make the wrap, I have a very large piece of pita. Next, I'm going to add on a few tablespoons of the tomb, some of those sumac onions, and I'm going to make it naff-naff style and add on some shaved red cabbage. This, of course, is optional. Then I'm adding in some Lebanese-style pickles. I'm going to slice some of that chicken shawarma right off the skewer, add that in there as well. Then I'm going to finish off with some of that tomato cucumber salad. Let's wrap it up just like a burrito. Then I'm going to take it over to the cooktop where I've added some oil to a nonstick skillet, and I'm just going to give it a quick toast on all sides. Then I'm going to finish it with something known as zeta. Now, I know I didn't pronounce that right. Huge ups, again, to Suzy from Mediterranean Dish for sending me some of this. I learned this from my friend Eli who owns Asele's House of Garlic, an amazing local food truck. Let's slice it in half and have a look, and that looks ridiculous. And don't even try to tell me how this won't bring people around the table and talking. It's amazing how food has the power to bring friends and family together to have great conversations. That's what it's all about. We also love to see people smile. That's why we cook and do this. All right, now, if you love this and just love those comforting chicken recipes, check out my chicken scallopine. I've got an amazing recipe video. I'll see you on there.